I bowed, saying to the Duke,
"Indeed I am, sir. I ask nothing but an opportunity."
"In all things?" asked Hudleston abruptly. "In all things, sir?" He fixed his keen eyes on my face.
Arlington pressed my arm and smiled pleasantly; he knew that kindness binds more sheaves than severity.
"Come, Mr Dale says in all things," he observed. "Do we need more, sir?"
But the Duke was rather of the priest's temper than of the Minister's.
"Why, my lord," he answered, "I have never known Mr Hudleston ask a question without a reason for it."
"By serving the King in all things, some mean in all things in which they may be pleased to serve the King," said Hudleston gravely. "Is Mr Dale one of these? Is it the King's pleasure or his own that sets the limit to his duty and his services?"
They were all looking at me now, and it seemed as though we had passed from courtly phrases, such as fall readily but with little import from a man's lips, and had come to a graver matter. They were asking some pledge of me, or their looks belied them. Why or to what end they desired it, I could not tell; but Darrell, who stood behind the priest, nodded his head to me with an anxious frown.